collateral damage
by astarisms
Summary: Lucifer realizes he's in love with Natalie McAllister. It's such a shame that the realization came too little too late. Memory arc spoilers.


i.

Lucifer had been alive far longer than any human could even begin to comprehend. He had seen and done everything there was to see and do. He had thought himself hardened and experienced enough where he wasn't just immune to surprises, but that there was nothing that remained to be seen that could even have the potential to.

Natalie McAllister continued to prove him wrong.

She was across the way, chatting with Raphael like it was just another day, like he was just another person, like she hadn't just faced off against hell itself and like she didn't bear the scars of her, what? Bravery? Stupidity?

Stupidity would be his first thought, but he couldn't deny the courage it must have taken to stand there and face the horrifying reality of his demons.

His demons. He would've snorted at his own joke if he wasn't so fucking exhausted.

He watched her for a few minutes, clenching his fists to hide how his limbs shook with fatigue. In the time he'd spent with her, he'd grown to not loathe her and everything her teenage-girl-mind stood for. She had gone from being a burden of the highest caliber to a mild inconvenience in such little time.

For one, disgusting, cringeworthy moment, he thought he might be going soft.

Then she was at his side, chattering in his ear and offering up his assistance to Raphael and Gabriel, and he quickly stamped that down as he felt blissfully familiar irritation threaten to make his eye twitch.

So maybe she wasn't so bad. That didn't mean anything.

ii.

"I wouldn't be best friends with a monster." There was a sincerity in her words he couldn't have possibly expected, and her bright smile threw him through a loop.

Best friends? With him? The devil?

His breath shuddered when he exhaled, and he was glad for the ringing of her phone and her short attention span.

The girl was mental.

But there was something her words incited in him, even as she turned away to deal with her angry brother. A stirring deep inside him, a longing he'd thought he'd killed and buried. She'd said he was her best friend and he'd spent centuries trying to forget what a best friend felt like.

He'd spent millennia trying to forget what loneliness felt like.

She was opening up old wounds and he would've resented her for it if she wasn't healing them along the way.

Even if the thought terrified him in ways he would never admit.

iii.

The first time he saw her with Jericho, his gut twisted. It was a nasty, familiar feeling, one that got him his wings ripped out and cast from his home, but he refused to place it — out of stubbornness or denial, he couldn't tell.

He didn't acknowledge it.

Instead, he strode forward to pull her away, a scowl on his lips.

On top of the not-jealousy climbing up his throat, there was a deeper, more serious uneasiness growing in him. He cast a glance over his shoulder at the boy as they moved farther away from him, and it surged.

He didn't trust him. He didn't want Natalie near him, and while there was a selfishness to the thought, there was a protectiveness he hadn't expected, as well.

He didn't like it, but for the moment, he embraced it. The kid was bad news and if he could help it, she'd never go near him again.

Until she asked him to trust her and threw her unwavering belief in him in his face. He hated how easily she convinced him, how easily he caved to every instinct because she asked him to.

He only hoped that this didn't backfire on him.

iv.

One of Lucifer's favorite, more mild pastimes used to involve getting people shitfaced. It was always funny to him, how easily the influence of alcohol opened people up. He'd learned of scandals, of people's deepest, darkest secrets.

The sins of humanity had always been able to lift his spirits.

Tonight, though, it was less than amusing. Instead of getting a good laugh, he was babysitting a stumbling teenager in the middle of the night.

And she was singing. Loudly. And badly.

His eardrums wept.

Eager to get her home and in bed, he adjusted her backpack on his shoulder and humored her questions with answers he was sure she wouldn't remember in the morning.

As it turned out, walking and talking while drunk was not a skill she possessed. He tried warning her, but before he could even get the words out she was tripping over her own feet and he surged to catch her.

Natalie, unaffected by the near tumble, just laughed and smiled up at him.

"I'd die for you, you know," she said, out of the blue. He felt the air rush out of him, his eyes going wide. She followed up with something that he didn't hear, his ears ringing with the echo of her words.

Had he heard her right?

I'd die for you.

While that was the farthest thing from what he wanted, he understood the sentiment and for several moments he found himself unable to move. Natalie slipped out of his arms and walked on ahead, singing again.

He forced himself to follow her. His head was spinning. His chest ached in a way it never had before and before he could stop himself from thinking it, he knew what it meant.

He shoved the thought down violently, struggling to compose himself. He needed to get a grip.

v.

The idea of pain had become a warped concept to Lucifer. After so long, it all seemed to blur together. What was a pinch of the skin or a slap on the face or a knife to the gut?

Pain was something Lucifer had long since learned to ignore.

Which was maybe why it took him as long as it did to realize what exactly it was he was feeling. For the first few moments, he'd just thought Natalie was having her period problems again — and those he had especially learned to disregard.

It was only when he felt something warm and wet coating his sweatshirt, slipping down his skin, that he began to have second thoughts and discovered the true source of the pain.

At first, he simply stared down at it, unable to believe what he was seeing, what he was feeling.

Then he shot to his feet. He realized belatedly that he didn't know where she had gone. Obviously she wasn't at the library studying if there was a new set of soon-to-be matching scars on her lower stomach and back.

It was almost funny, how all her scars had a twin.

It didn't take long to find her regardless and by that time he was seeing red. There was bloodlust in his eyes, the desire for it coursing through his veins in a way it hadn't in some time. He was furious, driven half mad at what his new wound meant and at the audacity of this imposter.

How dare he?

Lucifer was ready to tear his limbs from his body. So eager to exact revenge tenfold the crime, to spill blood for blood split, that he'd been blinded to what was most important.

He hated that it was Michael, of all people, who had to remind him. It was Michael who cradled her, broken and bleeding, in his arms and urged Lucifer to get her to a hospital.

Shame rushed over Lucifer. How could he have forgotten her? How could he have overlooked, for even a single moment, that despite how he handled her pain, she was still human and fragile?

If his own thoughtlessness hadn't made his throat constrict and his heart stutter painfully behind his ribs, the tears in her eyes and the tremor in her bones would've done the trick. She tried to speak and blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.

He held her close and shushed her as he rushed her to the nearest hospital, sick with the thought of what could've happened had he been a moment later.

vi.

She had given him an out. After months and being bound to her, stuck in this house and privy to every whim and want, she was offering to just… let him go.

He almost didn't believe it. It was too good to be true.

He could leave.

And for a moment, he considered it. He really did. He could return to his life before her, he could be free.

And for a moment, he did.

But he found he couldn't. Not with her confession. She'd been less sad with him around, she'd said. He would've thought her insane if it weren't for the fact that she had the same effect on him.

He could've laughed at the irony of the situation. How had she come to mean so much to him in such little time? He couldn't bring himself to stay away.

Congratulations, he thought, half amused and half bitter, as he took his doll off her shelf and dropped it into her bean bag chair, you've wrapped the devil around your finger.

It was disgusting, how much he cared for her.

He heard her coming and moved to her collection of books, trying to be casual, trying to play off how pathetic he was. She'd given him an out, no strings attached, yet here he was.

The moment her eyes fell on the chair, they began to water. When she realized what it meant, she fell to her knees with a sob of relief and disbelief. His chest felt tight again.

He hadn't meant to make her cry. The implications of her tears, of how deep her feelings for him ran, made the earth feel unsteady beneath his feet.

In almost the same breath, she stood, whirled, assaulted him, then threw her arms around him. He protested, giving a half-assed effort to pull away, because despite himself the press of her against him was almost more than he could handle.

"Suck it up," she sniffled, unrelenting, then leaned back a bit herself only to bring her hands up to cup his face, closing her eyes and leaning her forehead against his. He didn't move, didn't dare, looking down at her. He hadn't realized how much he'd craved this contact until he had it. "You didn't leave."

"...No," he said, staring down at her. He studied her face, longed to reach up and wipe the tears that he had caused from her cheeks, but he didn't.

"Should I even ask?"

"I'd prefer you didn't."

"Okay." His hands shook by his sides. She was always prodding him, but she didn't press him here. She let it go, her thumbs smoothing over his cheeks, just glad he was still there. "...Still friends?" she asked, a note of hesitation in her voice.

"...Yeah," he said after a beat, on a breath they shared. Natalie smiled and he wished it was enough.

Friends was good. This was what he wanted.

So then why was part of him so disappointed? Why was there a part of him that ached for more?

vii.

The fury he'd felt the night his abdomen had suddenly started bleeding with Natalie's injuries was no match for the restless rage he possessed now. After she'd been snatched from right under his nose and there'd been no sign of her since, Lucifer had nearly driven himself mad inside the confines of his own head.

After her location had been revealed to him, he'd been biding his time, trying to figure out how to slip her out of there and get the bastard and his little freak to stay far away from them.

The carving on his arm, however, had been the last straw. All bets were off the table.

The only difference between this rage and that one was that this time, Lucifer wouldn't lose focus. He knew what he'd come for, and she was priority.

Everything in his way to her was just collateral damage.

Room after room, he searched for her. He would let nothing distract him, except…

"You."

Jericho.

Since the throbbing in his arm had eased and Natalie was nowhere to be seen, he figured he could assume she was safe for the moment. And really, Jericho wouldn't take very long to deal with.

Lucifer felt his mind and body slipping away. It wasn't exactly welcome, but it was easier to accept Hell taking over when he saw the fear in the kid's eyes.

 _Good_.

But then Natalie was there. With the imposter, no less, but there, and alright, and imploring him to take back his body.

Hell was having too much fun with Jericho, however, not ready to relinquish control despite how Lucifer fought. Titus's encouragement only made things worse, but when he went after Natalie, Lucifer rioted, pushing back against Hell to make his body move.

"She will perish with you if you don't get serious," Titus threatened, and his head was so loud it was hard to hear him over the souls. Hell pushed, ready for a fight, but Lucifer strained for control.

If Hell took over completely, there was no telling what it would do to Natalie.

And then…

It was quiet. She'd used her contract for him. She smiled at him wearily and he was overwhelmed with emotion, staring at her in awe. Under different circumstances, he might have kissed her.

But the circumstances weren't different and they were standing in the middle of a burning warehouse and she'd been here for far too long. It was time to get her home and safe.

viii.

After what he'd seen of Titus, after what the man had done, Lucifer had been convinced he'd never feel anything for him aside from a passive antipathy.

Titus was not, he decided after Natalie was safely home, enough of a threat anymore to concern himself with.

So when he showed up at Natalie's doorstep to beg Lucifer for a fight and tell them why he so desperately needed one, Lucifer was ready to toss him back to the streets where he came from.

When Titus claimed that Lucifer was no longer fit for the title of Satan, he almost rose to his feet, ready to grab him by the ugly shirt he'd been wearing and haul him out of the front door. Titus sensed this, and continued on quickly.

"I feel like being alone and unloved is a quality 'Satan' possesses," he rushed to say. "You don't have that anymore because—" Before he could even finish, Lucifer knew. His eyes unconsciously went to Natalie. "—you have her."

In one regard, he was right, Lucifer guessed, trying not to let his gaze soften on the redhead as it had so often tried to do as of late.

He did have her. And with her he found he was beginning to forget what 'alone and unloved' felt like.

ix.

Anywhere in the world, he'd told her. He would take her anywhere, all she had to do was name it.

And all she'd wanted was to go a few hours west to the coast.

If you'd have asked him before, he would've called it a waste of a wish. But seeing her face, as she looked out over the ocean, the sunset painting her pale skin as if she was a canvas, he couldn't find it in himself to discount the location.

This was what she'd wanted, and he was glad it didn't disappoint. She seemed awestruck by the view, and he was reluctant to admit he was in much the same state over a slightly different sight.

She admired the way the horizon stretched endless before them and the way the colors of the sky reflected on the ocean and he watched the way the oranges and pinks played across her cheeks and neck and chest and shoulders and the way sun turned her hair into fire and the way the waves danced in her eyes with the same amount of breathless reverence she had, though unlike her, he was quick to catch himself and turn away.

The image of her was burned in his mind. He thought she was a lovely image to close his eyes to.

He glanced at her again, briefly. He'd told her this was all he was doing as thanks, but the truth was, he would never be able to make it up to her.

He'd spend the rest of her life trying, though in much more subtle ways. She would never grasp the extent of what she'd done for him, and it was no use trying to deny it anymore, at least not to himself.

He loved her all the more for it.

x.

Which is why he would make sure she would never understand the full extent of what he'd done for her.

Love was a funny thing.


End file.
